Lighting fixtures, also known as luminaires in the lighting industry, are widely used in parking structures including enclosed garages and partially enclosed mall parking areas. These parking garage luminaires provide an important safety function by effectively and efficiently illuminating these structures for both pedestrians and drivers.
Parking garage luminaires of advantageous designs should control glare, effectively shape the emitted light, and direct the light generally upwardly to avoid a cave-like effect, generally downwardly to illuminate the driving and walking surfaces, and generally outwardly to illuminate the sides of the structure, people and vehicles.
In addition, parking garage luminaires, which normally should have a working life of many years, should be reasonably simple, cost effective and efficient to make, assemble, install, use, maintain, and clean. All of these functions should be accomplished using as few parts and steps as possible, with as little waste as possible, and with reasonable energy efficiency. The manufacturing process should be as simple as possible with a limited inventory of parts and use of interchangeable, modular parts. Finally, these parking garage luminaires should be reasonably sealed from the outside to provide corrosion and dirt-resistance and allow power washing.
While many luminaires in general and many parking garage luminaires in particular are known in the prior art, they tend to inadequately provide many of the desirable features noted above.
Examples of known luminaires are disclosed in the following U.S. patents, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,883 to Donohue et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,087,682 to Kolodziej; U.S. Pat. No. 4,231,080 to Compton; U.S. Pat. No. 4,338,655 to Gulliksen et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,103 to Compton; U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,989 to Compton; U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,427 to Lassovsky; U.S. Pat. No. 6,036,338 to Gordin; U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,338 to Cummings et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,585,398 to Haddad; and U.S. Pat. No. D361,400 to Compton.